Why Don’t We Have “Singularized” North American Pro Sports Team Names?

First off, let me start by wishing all of you reading this a very Happy New Year. That’s right – it’s January 1 2011 and the start of another year. Funny thing, however, is that you wouldn’t know that from the weather today here in Hamilton. It feels more like a warm, rainy, spring day. Doesn’t look anything like winter today, in fact it’s been raining most of the day, to the point that the snow we’ve had here for much of December (and gave us a white Christmas!) has disappeared.

So I hope you’ll understand if I tell you that it really feels more like April 1 or May 1 out there. I am writing this just after 4:00 p.m. and according to The Weather Network, it is now 11 degrees Celsius in downtown Hamilton. For those of you who prefer Fahrenheit temperature readings (such as my American relatives and friends who may be looking in), that’s something like 50 degrees. And it was actually a bit warmer than that earlier today! This morning, I went out to buy some groceries and couldn’t believe how warm it was. When I got back here, I discovered that it was something like 12 or 13 degrees. Hmm – maybe I am really in Hamilton, Bermuda today instead of Hamilton, Ontario.

If that’s not enough I was watching the Tournament of Roses Parade earlier today from Pasadena California. It’s one of my annual New Year’s traditions, especially meaningful in that on July 4 1981 during a visit to Southern California with some of my American cousins, I actually got to see the route the Parade takes every year. I cite all this because it was rather cold out there today. Or at least cold by Los Angeles standards – according to the commentators on both the NBC and ABC stations covering the Parade (I switched back and forth during the commercials!), they claimed it was in the 30’s overnight last night and was only in the 40’s this morning while the Parade was passing by. Certainly not a typical January 1 for that part of the world. In other words, it’s been warmer in Southern Ontario today than in Southern California.

Having said all this, however, the weather forecasters are saying that we shouldn’t get used to this preview of spring. There’s a cold front due through here later today and tonight, and by this time tomorrow, we should be back to more normal temperatures for this time of year, such as 0 Celsius or minus values. And that it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. In other words, winter is still very much with us – just taking a short break. It won’t be long before it’s back with us, and likely to stay until sometime in March or April when we say hello to Spring 2011. But as I sometimes do with my blog entries, I am disgressing and not addressing what I really wanted to talk to all of you about today.

Now on to today’s blog subject. This is actually something that I have thought about for some time, and that’s pro sports teams names. We could really have some fun with this, and over time I just might do that. Including today’s entry. Here goes!

For example, have you ever wondered how sports teams get their names? It’s fun to look at. For example, our local NHL team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, took their name from Canada’s national symbol. Their first owner, Major Conn Smythe, had served in the Canadian Army during the First World War and was a very proud Canadian. Not only that, but my understanding is that he served in what was known as the Maple Leaf Regiment. So when he purchased the National Hockey League team known as the Toronto St. Patrick’s in 1927, he immediately changed the name to “Maple Leafs”. It’s also been said that when he changed the team colours from the green and white that the St. Patrick’s used in tribute to Toronto’s Irish community to the blue and white that the Leafs still use today, he was inspired to do so by the blue Canadian sky and the white Canadian snow. I’m not sure I buy that one, but it sounds like fun, and also sounds very Canadian.

The Minnesota Vikings football team was so named because many Minnesotans can trace their ethnic roots to Norway, Finland and the other Scandinavian countries. And what more famous Scandinavian image than those famous seafarers, the Vikings. Their major league baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, were named in tribute to the state’s two main cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, located across the Mississippi river from each other, and collectively known as the “Twin Cities”.

Arguably the most successful pro basketball franchise is the Boston Celtics – named in tribute to the city’s most numerous and famous ethnic origin, the Irish. Although the Los Angeles Lakers might want to argue about who has the most successful NBA team. By the way, the Lakers actually took their franchise name from their first home. You guessed it. We’re back in Minnesota again. Perhaps it’s understandable, given my Minnesota heritage – my maternal grandmother and a couple of the other Hayes siblings were born in Robbinsdale (one hundred years ago, a suburb of the Twin Cities, but long since absorbed by Minneapolis). Before moving out to Los Angeles, the team was known as the “Minneapolis Lakers”. After all, Minnesota is often nick-named as “the Land of 10,000 Lakes”. So calling a sports team based there the “Lakers” would make sense. Even if they only stayed there for a few years before heading west.

We noted that the Toronto Maple Leafs took their name from Canadian patriotism. As did the Montreal Canadiens and the Vancouver Canucks. For our friends across the border, American history has served as inspiration for a few sports teams names, such as the New England Patriots of the NFL and the Philadelphia 76’ers of the NBA. Or the San Francisco 49’ers, supposedly named for the 1849 Gold Rush that took place in Northern California. The Chicago Blackhawks hockey team were named in honour of an Native American tribe known for their bravery that once lived near present-day Chicago. The Houston Astros baseball team took their name from the fact that Houston became the home of NASA and thus the headquarters of the American space program, especially during the 1960’s race to the moon. The same inspiration also led to the naming of another Houston sports team, the Rockets of the NBA.

American history could also have inspired the New York Liberty of the WNBA women’s basketball league? Or the New England Revolution, who are part of Major League Soccer? The Philadelphia Eagles of the NFL took their name from the “Blue Eagle” program that was part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” of the 1930’s. You get the idea!

But here’s the aspect of sports team names that I wanted to explore today. Have you ever wondered why we don’t have a lot of “singularized” sports team names, or what would happen if you did “singularize” a team name? Perhaps it doesn’t occur to us, but when you look at team names, not only in pro sports but also in college and university sports, they are almost always pluralized. There are some exceptions – such as Stanford University in California, where their teams are known as the “Cardinal”. Not sure why they don’t use “Cardinals”, but that’s their decision. And there are the aforementioned New York Liberty and New England Revolution that could be interpreted either way. Same thing in the NBA for teams such as the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Orlando Magic, the Miami Heat or the Utah Jazz. But I wonder why we don’t have more “singularized” team names? Or why it seems that the vast majority of team names have always been pluralized? That’s what I wanted to look at today, and why I chose the title that I did for this blog entry.

All this first came to my mind back in the 1970’s with the arrival of the World Football League (one of several attempts to compete with the National Football League). Two of the most prominent teams in the league were the Philadelphia Bell and the Southern California Sun. I can understand the inspiration – in that I figured the Philadelphia team was named in honour of the Liberty Bell, and the California team in tribute to the warm sunny weather that’s typical of Los Angeles (where the team was based).

I couldn’t help but wonder, however, why their names were “singular” in nature. Why the “Bell” and not “Bells”? Maybe people felt that if you plurarized it, you could get “Belles”. OK – I can hear the laughs from here. That name would certainly be interesting for a professional men’s football team. Why the Southern California Sun? After all, the pro basketball team in Phoenix is known as the “Suns”.

So I wonder what would happen if you take some pro sports team names and drop the plurization. Could be fun. You can have baseball teams like the Minnesota Twin, the Toronto Blue Jay, the Seattle Mariner, the San Francisco Giant, the New York Yankee, the Philadelphia Philly, the Kansas City Royal, the Chicago White Sock or the Boston Red Sock.

In the NBA you could find yourself cheering for the New York Knickerbocker (or “Knick” – they tend to use the shorter form of the name), the Houston Rocket, the Los Angeles Clipper, the Golden State Warrior, the Sacramento King, the Dallas Maverick, the Toronto Raptor or the Minnesota Timberwolf. And of course, as we noted earlier, you could have the Phoenix Sun. After all, if a Southern California football team did it, how about an Arizona basketball team?

How about going to a hockey game and supporting the Los Angeles King, the Philadelphia Flyer, the Edmonton Oiler, the Washington Capital, the Pittsburgh Penguin, the Ottawa Senator, the Carolina Hurricane, the New Jersey Devil or the Buffalo Sabre.

And lest you think I forgot pro football, how about NFL team names such as the Chicago Bear, the Seattle Seahawk, the Pittsburgh Steeler, the Cleveland Brown, the Miami Dolphin or the Carolina Panther? For those of us here in Canada, try the B.C. Lion or the Edmonton Eskimo on for size.

In American (or Canadian) college and university sports, you could find yourself in Pasadena on some future New Year’s Day not only watching the Tournament of Roses Parade, but later that same day, going to the Rose Bowl game and cheering for the UCLA Bruin football team. Or their Los Angeles crosstown rivals the USC Trojan. Next time you’re in Seattle, why not cheer for the University of Washington Husky. Or their Connecticut namesakes? For my fellow Canadians, let’s all cheer on the University of Toronto Varsity Blue or the Western Ontario Mustang. The University of Alberta Golden Bear or the McGill Redman perhaps?

And those are just a few examples. Given the many sports teams scattered across North America, you could really have some fun with this idea. Which is what I wanted to do on this New Year’s Day. Write something fun and light-hearted to start off 2011. Anyway you look at it, all this is no bull. Or should I say Chicago Bull? I will now throw it over to all of you, my readers, and see if you want to go any further. In summation, I thought this might be something fun to write on New Year’s Day 2011. I hope that all of you reading this enjoy a wonderful, happy, healthy and prosperous 2011 and beyond.

Until next time. Or since I was listening to another edition of Casey Kasem’s famous “American Top 40” on a local Hamilton radio station as I wrote this entry (in this case, a special New Year’s Day edition counting down the top songs of 1985 – no. 1, by the way, was “Careless Whisper” by the British rock group WHAM), maybe I should end this the way Casey ended every AT 40 broadcast: